Thursday

I'm not much of a resolution-type person; absolutes set me up for failure, and a year from now I don't want to sit here beating myself up because I had this list written down, and a bunch of the things on it are unchecked. However, I do like to make some generalized plans, goals for the the year, and I like the idea of the new year being a new slate to write on.

2015 was the year I wanted to focus on getting my krap together--eat better, move more, get control of some of the physical things that vex me--and I pretty much did what I set out to do. I paid better attention to the things I was eating, and while I ended the year with a tasty 2 week food fest, for the most part I got a good handle on it. I hit the gym and re-discovered a fondness for swimming, working up to a fairly easy 1.5-2 miles at a time. I worked with my doc to pin down my blood sugar issues, and the things she suggested are working, for the most part. I still have the odd moments here and there when it crashes, but I can now at least get through a workout with a lot of worrying.

I didn't participate in any charity walks; part of the getting-my-krap-together thing was taking a break from those. I wanted to focus on a more rounded approach to fitness, and just walking wasn't going to do it.

Onward and upward

But 2016...I will walk again. Better yet, the Spouse Thingy is going to walk with me. We're registered to walk in the San Diego 3 Day for next November. The rest of the Pink Slips are going to Atlanta and crewing there, and a big part of me wants to go, too, but I won't know what my doc thinks about me flying until May, and by then the crew slots will be gone.

Plus...I am totally digging the idea of the Spouse Thingy walking with DKM and me. He's crewed before (and if he can't get in the training time, he may wind up crewing after all...but I think we'll get it done) but this would be his first walk, and maybe he'll get an idea of why it matters so much to me.

That will probably be the capstone for 2016, which I'm starting to think of as the Year of Doing. Other plans:

♦ Hot Chocolate 15K on January 10th, the previously mentioned race that I am in no way ready for. I'm still determined to have fun with it, finish or not. I have only two hopes for it: to have fun and to not die.

Might want to get rid of this mop, eh?

♦ The St. Baldrick's Shave-a-thon to raise money for kids' cancer is in February, and I'm registered for that. I've been seriously flip-flopping over doing it again; while I enjoy dyeing my hair odd colors and rocking the faux-hawk every now and then, I truly do not enjoy the shaved-head look for myself. And right now my hair is the longest it's been in 2 years (which isn't long, really) and part of me wants to have normal hair for a while...but. I can't do much for kids who have cancer, but I can do this.

♦ Donna virtual marathon for breast cancer; I'm registering at the beginning of the year and just have to get it done before March 31st.

♦ The Pixie Dust Challenge at Disneyland in May. Two races back to back, a 10K on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday. I'm not worried about the distance, just meeting the pace. It's a required 16 minute mile pace, which is slow for most people, but pretty freaking speedy for me. I'd worry if it was in February or March, but being May I think I'll have it down by then.

♦ The Avon Walk in San Francisco late July. I know I haven't actually walked in the 3 I registered for, but this is the year. I registered already, and am determined to be healthy enough to do it this time around.

♦ Yosemite Half Marathon in October. This should be a good warmup for the 3 Day.

Let's not do this again...

♦ And then there's the 3 Day in November. That should be a good way to end the Year of Doing. After that we spring into the holidays and take the time to enjoy just Being.

So no real resolutions, but lots of plans and things to look forward to. Less of working on me and more of doing things that this year's working on me has allowed.

Now, I would like to lose about 50 more pounds in 2016, but I'm not resolving to do it. If I keep eating well and working, the weight will take care of itself, or not.

As my doc told me this year: you are not a number of the scale; keep doing what you're doing, and you'll be fine.

Sunday

Right after the Beat the Blerch run in November I registered for the Hot Chocolate 15k in San Francisco on January 10th. It was like, sure, why not? It's more than double the 10k distance and it has a 15 minute mile pace requirement, where the Blerch had none and I finished with a 17:14 pace.

Surely training would change that.

Now, I'm not an idiot. I honestly didn't sign up for it thinking I would finish--I knew I could do the distance but not the pace--but the idea was that in having a goal, I would train, and get as close to that 15m/m as I could.

I haven't trained nearly as much as I should, and because I am a weenie and it's been cold and rainy or cold and windy, what I've done has been on the treadmill.

I loathe the treadmill. (ok, I loathe our treadmill. It's a cheap one, the belt is starting to slip, and it's like running on concrete that's inexplicably harder than running on concrete. I don't enjoy it, not one bit.) I'll pop something up on the TV and do it, but it's torture, and I just don't stay on it as long as I should.

I also haven't been able to consistently break a 16:30 pace, especially not over distance. A mile, sure, I can gut that out if I've warmed up. Two miles, three...my body just isn't there yet. My back is screaming at me and I can feel a pulling in my lower back, right where I slipped a disk a few years ago.

Most of the time, I think that's a mental thing. I mean, I feel the pain, I feel the twinge and keep begging my back to not give out, but every time I get out of a chair and grimace, I'm half certain it's my brain screwing with me, already making excuses.

I should have registered for the 5K and not the 15, I know that. I could push myself through a 5K and at least come close to finishing in the time required. I keep telling myself that I wanted the 15k in order to really push myself, to go the distance even if don't make the pace, but the truth is that it was probably more ego than anything else.

The run is in 2 weeks; I'm nowhere near the pace I need to be. I also know that near the end is the horrible climb up the hill near the Cliff House, and I know how badly that hurt during the 3 Day. Where I was pretty sure I wouldn't finish before, now I am certain.

It'll be my own damn fault.

I'll still show up, I'll still try my best and go until I can't go any longer, but I'm not as stupid as I am lazy: I did not train well enough and I am not fast enough. I am not prepared for the crush of the crowd of other runners, and I am not prepared for the hills.

I'm okay with it.

Well...other than by the time I'm done all the hot chocolate at the end will be gone. I'm not okay with that. I want my hot chocolate, dammit.

Wednesday

Many years ago, I grew a head in a nylon sock with grass for hair...and it turned out looking like Bill Clinton. It everntually got maggots and had to be tossed out, but while it was alive, it was glorious.

Thursday

Monday morning we headed for the airport, waited way too long in the airport because we believed the talking heads on TV when they said security lines were still wicked long, and then boarded a flight for the LA area. The takeoff was a little bumpy (which did not help my flying anxiety in the least) but an hour and fifteen minutes later we were there. Twenty minutes after that we were in a taxi, half an hour after that we’d checked into the hotel, and by 3 p.m. we were walking toward the front gates at Disneyland.

The plan was four and a half days, and we wanted to get in all the things we hadn’t done before, maybe twice. The crowd predictor said it wasn’t going to be crowded at all, so we had high hopes we’d do it all.

Yeah.

What did was a lot of walking. 7 miles on Monday afternoon and evening. We didn’t ride a thing, just walked around and enjoyed the holiday decorations, making plans for what we were going to do in the morning. Because, look! Not crowded!

So we walked. We wanted to hang around until dark to see the park lit up with holiday decorations, and enjoy everything.

But then…

Holy cow.

All the people.

When you bail on the fireworks, drink 'em...

It was crowded before, a lot more than the crowd predictor said, but by then it was *crowded*. One of the things the Spouse Thingy has wanted to do but we never had was to be in the park when the fireworks went off, and that was the goal. More and more people poured in, and as we walked around it was pretty clear that we were going to hate it soon.

We bailed around 8:15.

We got to bed very early, I did not sleep, but hell…Disneyland. Who cares?

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early and dammit, we were hitting up Space Mountain (which is now Hyperspace Mountain) and then getting a fast pass so we could ride it again. Space Mountain is the one Must Do in Disneyland for me; ideally we ride it 3 times a day and only don’t ride it more because there are actually other things to do there.

Sixty billion other people had the same idea. The wait line for standby riders was already over an hour long, and we wound up in a 20 minute line just to get fast passes. All right, fine, once a day is still good enough…I can’t stand in one place very long, so over an hour in a line for anything just isn’t happening. We got our passes and then went looking for things to do until we had to go back.
We had breakfast and people-watched while we ate, then headed for some kiddie rides to kill time. Other than Peter Pan (an hour) those rides had short lines, so we amused ourselves with Pinocchio and Cinderella, and then finally got to Space Mountain.

It was AWESOME. So awesome we thought we’d grab fast passes for later, even knowing it might be 4 or 5 o’clock.

But nope…no more available. Lines for everything were fairly long, so we headed for CA Adventures and got onto Radiator Springs using the single rider line (standby: 65 minutes) and had lunch…and did a lot more walking.

Sometime during the day I realized I was drinking, but not peeing. So I drank a little more. And I felt tired, but hey, I hadn’t slept.

On the plus side? We hit 12 miles for the day.

We got to bed a little less early, but still planned on being up at a decent time…but I did not sleep again. Maybe 3 hours, and not all at once.

When we got up, I was overly tired but still wanted to head out right off the bat in order to grab another Space Mountain fast pass. The line for that was shorter but the wait to go back was just as long, so we wandered.

I was more than tired. And I was swollen all over. Still drinking but barely peeing. Everything hurt. We went for breakfast and I realized I was already hitting That Point. It was crowded as hell, it was hot, I’d had very little sleep the previous two nights, and my electrolytes were about 60 kinds of screwed up.

By 11 a.m. we’d pretty much decided that if we could get our flight changed, we were going home a day early.

Southwest gets bonus points; they made it super easy to change, and I didn’t even have to talk to anyone. Disneyland Hotel gets points: they weren’t going to make us pay for the night we weren’t going to be there.

We did go back into the park to get on Space Mountain again…which sucked. I don’t know if it was the car we were in or the fact that everything on me already hurt, but I felt completely beat up on it, so much that we didn’t even try to get another fast pass.

I started drinking Gatorade.

I peed a little.

We hit up a couple of the things we for sure wanted to ride, and we wandered around. Made sure we had lunch at Plaza Inn because….fried chicken to die for. Bought some t-shirts. Tried to hit up a few rides but people were shoulder to shoulder and the wait times too long. Took a break at the hotel, partly to get away from all those people but also the heat which was also getting to me.

I had expected to need to take breaks. I hadn’t expected to feel the need to just pack up and go home so early. I’d expected my feet and legs to feel beat up. I hadn’t expected bloating as badly as I did and I surely didn’t expect to drink enough yet still find myself not peeing.

We got a bunch of pictures, left the parks at about 7:45, had dinner, and that was it. 12 more miles.
I didn’t sleep much last night, either.

But now we’re home, a day ahead of when we planned, and I can hear my own bed calling to me. I feel like my face is the size of a basketball and I can tell just by looking my feet are swollen.

Tomorrow night I’ll skip my meds to take care of the bloating if I need to, and in a few days should be back to normal.

Yes, my shoes match my shirt

But still…even though it sounds like a bad vacation, it wasn’t. We had a really good time, but realized early on that I was for sure going to crash and burn, and rather than tough it out and risk it being an ugly crash, we decided to cut it short. It was really too crowded to get anything done, but the parks were decorated beautifully and other than a couple of things—we never did get to see the fireworks, and we didn’t get on a couple of things we had wanted—we did a lot.

Other than the Tinkerbell next May, we’re taking a break from Disney for a while…but when we do go back, it’ll be with a better plan, one that will get me needed sleep, and hopefully one that will keep me from exploding like a terrified puffer fish. And instead of planning 3.5 days…just 2. My limit seems to be 2.

Disneyland is still one of my favorite places, but with all the things that will be shut down next year while they work on Star Wars Land, it seems like a good time to take a break from it, and do something else next year when we want some down time.

2019 Charity Events

Facebook

Places To Go

A Wabbit Walking

Amazon Author Page

Doctor Who Quotes

There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.

We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?

Every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later? And the answer is, of course, because they're going to be sad later.

The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.

If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.